Marian Gaborik’s first game with the Columbus Blue Jackets is in the books.

He played a key role in Thursday’s 3-1 victory over the Nashville Predators and liked what he saw from his teammates.

“I was a little bit surprised by the speed of this team,” Gaborik said, according to the Columbus Dispatch. “The young guys, the small forwards … they were flying. We were supporting each other out there, everybody contributing. And ‘Bob’ was tremendous, making save after save.

“It’s going to be fine. I feel good about this.”

The fact that Gaborik is embracing his new home shows how far this franchise has come in such a short time.

They never seemed to be able to get Jeff Carter to warm to the idea of being a Blue Jackets player after acquiring him in the summer of 2011. They ended up cutting their losses with Carter and then even the face of their franchise, Rick Nash, decided it was time to abandon ship.

Now the Blue Jackets are in the playoff hunt, thanks in large part to goaltender Sergei “Bob” Bobrovsky, and Gaborik was willing to waive his no-trade clause to come in from the New York Rangers.

Gaborik netted the game-winning goal in his debut. If you missed it earlier, you can view it below:

Minnesota Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk has been the most difficult goalies to score against this season. Leave it to a high-level player like Leon Draisaitl to make it look this, well, “easy.”

Draisaitl scored his 13th goal of 2016-17 by capping this pretty give-and-go play with Benoit Pouliot. You can see the frustration from Dubnyk at the end of the tally, as if he was saying “How was I supposed to stop that?” (though probably with more colorful language).

Draisaitl came into Friday with five goals and three assists in his last five games, so he’s been almost unstoppable lately.